Manny Medina Launches Startup Paid to Revolutionize AI Agent Compensation

Manny Medina has launched a new startup called Paid, designed to facilitate the compensation of AI agents. The company recently secured €10 million in pre-seed funding from major investors. Paid aims to provide flexible pricing structures as traditional software pricing models don’t adequately fit the AI landscape. The platform targets startups and measures agent performance, striving to ensure profitability in this emerging sector.

Manny Medina, the founder behind Outreach, a hefty sales automation firm, is launching a venture called Paid, aimed at revolutionizing how AI agents get compensated. Rather than creating AI agents themselves, the startup provides a platform ensuring these digital workers are paid effectively, according to Medina in an exclusive chat with TechCrunch. Recently, Paid secured a cool €10 million (roughly $11 million) in pre-seed funding from renowned investors like EQT Ventures, Sequoia, and GTMFund.

Medina’s inspiration for Paid emerged from months spent dialoguing with various agentic platforms where he encountered a major sticking point: how do you set prices? “They didn’t really know what to charge,” he explained. Traditional software pricing based on user count is outdated for AI agents. The crux is that an employee might oversee several agents or—more likely—these agents operate independently.

“Companies developing AI agents can’t charge like SaaS services based on usage,” Medina said. After all, if an agent excels, it essentially takes on entire roles, not just individual tasks. Businesses that employ these agents are interested in their outcomes, which complicates traditional billing. For instance, in the insurance sector, clients care about completed policy renewals rather than every single email sent by an AI.

Costs inevitably fluctuate as well, largely governed by the number of LLM tokens needed for training and tasks, which raises another question: how do you price the service? Medina emphasized the necessity for these startups to experiment with different pricing structures and assess their profit margins. Paid aims to bridge this gap, offering not just a billing solution but a way to measure agent performance and ROI.

Positioning itself somewhere between Zuora—famous for SaaS renewal billing—and SuccessFactors—known for managing HR processes—Paid’s platform is targeted more toward startups rather than the giants like Salesforce. As Medina shared, they’re already getting some traction with beta customers, including Logic.app, 11x, VidLab7, Artisan, and HappyRobot.

“Agents are replacing roles—not whole jobs, but entire roles,” Medina pointed out, reiterating the shift in workforce dynamics. He’s also walking the walk by integrating AI into his startup’s development process. With just two engineers on board, Paid built its initial product demos in about a month, utilizing tools like v0 and Replit. “This is what is so much fun about building a company right now,” Medina noted.

With a track record of starting from scratch, Medina previously took Outreach from zero to 800 employees, amassing a staggering $250 million in annual revenue during his tenure. Though he stepped back from the CEO role last September and the executive chairman role in March, he remains involved with Paid while now operating from London.

Manny Medina’s new venture, Paid, aims to address the evolving landscape of AI agents by providing a platform that simplifies their compensation. With fresh investment and an innovative approach to pricing, Medina envisions a future where startups can seamlessly manage the costs and outputs associated with these digital employees. This shift not only reflects the changing nature of work but also positions Paid strategically in the AI sector, distinguishing itself from traditional software models. As Medina continues to navigate this new territory, the implications for both AI and workforce management could be significant.

Original Source: techcrunch.com